Can hybrid working herald new opportunities for disabled workers?

When it comes to ensur­ing equal­i­ty in the work­place, many com­pa­ny report cards would be marked ‘failed’, with not enough C‑Suites offer­ing inclu­sive solu­tions to pro­vide sus­tain­able and ful­fill­ing employ­ment for dis­abled peo­ple.

One in six peo­ple world­wide has a dis­abil­i­ty, accord­ing to the World Eco­nom­ic Forum, leav­ing more than 1 bil­lion at risk of eco­nom­ic exclu­sion. Accord­ing to the char­i­ty Scope, dis­abled peo­ple in the UK are almost twice as like­ly to be unem­ployed as non-dis­abled peo­ple.

A num­ber of issues con­tribute to a slow rate of change, from a lack of dis­abled rep­re­sen­ta­tion on com­pa­ny boards to inac­ces­si­ble work­places to out­dat­ed ideas on what dis­abled peo­ple are capa­ble of offer­ing. How­ev­er, with the Covid pan­dem­ic chang­ing atti­tudes to flex­i­ble, remote and hybrid work­ing, there is a renewed hope of final­ly dri­ving through real, mean­ing­ful change.

Louise Rubin, Scope’s head of pol­i­cy and cam­paigns, explains that the dis­abil­i­ty employ­ment gap remains “stub­born­ly high” at around 30%. The charity’s research esti­mates 1 mil­lion dis­abled peo­ple in the UK alone want to work but are not giv­en the oppor­tu­ni­ty. 

Rubin says: “Dis­abled peo­ple have long faced bar­ri­ers to enter­ing, stay­ing and pro­gress­ing in work. The intro­duc­tion of flex­i­ble-work­ing mea­sures, some­thing that dis­abled peo­ple have been request­ing for years, is one pos­i­tive to come out of an intense­ly stress­ful year. These mea­sures must not be aban­doned in the rush to ‘get back to nor­mal’”.

Scope’s #work­withme cam­paign, a com­mu­ni­ty of busi­ness­es com­mit­ted to think­ing and act­ing dif­fer­ent­ly about dis­abil­i­ty to cre­ate long-term change, has sup­port from organ­i­sa­tions includ­ing Unilever, Philips, Ford and Amer­i­can Express. But recent moves by some com­pa­nies to pay peo­ple less if they choose to work from home are a sign that those with dis­abil­i­ties con­tin­ue to face chal­lenges. Rubin warns that such a deci­sion by busi­ness­es “could active­ly dis­crim­i­nate” against dis­abled peo­ple, mak­ing it hard­er for them to get into work and thrive. “It’s unfair to expect dis­abled peo­ple to choose between their health and their finances, and those who want to work from home should be sup­port­ed to do so,” she says.

Hybrid pros and cons for disabled people

Bob Bark­er was diag­nosed with hear­ing loss at age five. Now work­ing for IT and soft­ware com­pa­ny Advanced, he believes the move to more remote work­ing over the past 18 months has result­ed in some ben­e­fits for those with dis­abil­i­ties. The biggest for him, he says, is meet­ings became remote and inclu­sive, allow­ing him to lip-read col­leagues who were using web­cams.

“Chal­lenges my hear­ing loss could present at in-per­son meet­ings were no longer there,” he explains. “I did­n’t need to be con­cerned about where to sit in a meet­ing room to best hear the par­tic­i­pants. The accel­er­at­ed roll­out of improved col­lab­o­ra­tion soft­ware meant I was assist­ed by live cap­tions and tran­scripts on calls. This gave me greater con­fi­dence, mean­ing I could be more my true self and do a bet­ter job.”

A home­work­er before the pan­dem­ic, Bark­er chairs Advanced’s Dis­abil­i­ty Net­work and has advised employ­ers on how to make online meet­ings more acces­si­ble. Advanced is one of many employ­ers signed up to the gov­ern­men­t’s Dis­abil­i­ty Con­fi­dent employ­er scheme, which aims to encour­age com­pa­nies to improve how they recruit, retain and devel­op dis­abled peo­ple.

Bark­er also believes that employ­ers might be sur­prised by “how lit­tle, if any­thing, adjust­ments may cost” to make dis­abled employ­ees’ work­ing lives eas­i­er, sug­gest­ing more home­work­ing would give “greater access to a diverse pool of tal­ent”. And he adds: “Work­ing from home could ben­e­fit some dis­abled peo­ple by allow­ing them to man­age their con­di­tions in a more relaxed and acces­si­ble envi­ron­ment or remov­ing the need for a stress­ful com­mute. How­ev­er, oth­ers may find that being around col­leagues in the work­place helps alle­vi­ate their con­di­tions.” 

A sign of recent pos­i­tive change, Scope’s free Sup­port to Work ser­vice, cre­at­ed in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Work With Me mem­ber Vir­gin Media O2, expe­ri­enced record demand in Octo­ber 2020, post­ing a 236% year-on-year refer­ral increase. The ini­tia­tive helps pro­vide dis­abled peo­ple with the skills and con­fi­dence to get and stay in work.

Vir­gin Media O2 has also launched Ultra­Vi­o­let, a ded­i­cat­ed net­work to sup­port dis­abled employ­ees, and has updat­ed its work­place adjust­ments pro­gramme to pro­vide more inclu­sive equip­ment, soft­ware and fur­ni­ture, as well as flex­i­ble work­ing hours so dis­abled employ­ees can man­age work around their impair­ment or con­di­tion.

Flexibility to choose

Mol­ly Watt, a usabil­i­ty con­sul­tant at design agency Nex­er Dig­i­tal, has Ush­er syn­drome. Deaf since birth, she lost her sight aged 14 and, for her, the inter­ac­tion that comes from being in the office, not least for men­tal health rea­sons, is just as impor­tant as time work­ing from home. 

Pre-pan­dem­ic, Watt worked part-time in a local office in the South East and trav­elled to Man­ches­ter once a fort­night with her guide dog. She believes that the flex­i­bil­i­ty to choose where to work enables employ­ees to man­age their lives in accor­dance with their needs, ensur­ing the best pos­si­ble per­son­al and team per­for­mance.

“Some peo­ple, like me, want to enjoy the ben­e­fits of work­ing with their peers both online and phys­i­cal­ly in the office,’ she explains. “For exam­ple, hav­ing a dual impair­ment is exhaust­ing, but being at home means I can reg­u­lar­ly close and rest my eyes with­out feel­ing I’m miss­ing out on any­thing. It’s eas­i­er to switch off for a few min­utes than in a phys­i­cal office. Doing this means I can be more pro­duc­tive and feel less exhaust­ed.”

Offer­ing prac­ti­cal advice to employ­ers, Watt sug­gests com­pa­nies need to be more open with those with dis­abil­i­ties, talk­ing about where they need sup­port. “Don’t shy away from ask­ing ques­tions. The more you can find out about dis­abil­i­ties, the bet­ter you can under­stand and accom­mo­date them. There is no rea­son why peo­ple work­ing from home, either full- or part-time, should feel exclud­ed from the team’s work, projects or line of thought,” she adds.

With 19% of work­ing-age adults in the UK dis­abled, accord­ing to Scope, Watt’s boss at Nex­er Dig­i­tal, Hilary Stephen­son, is clear why all busi­ness­es must be dis­abil­i­ty inclu­sive. And while ensur­ing those with dis­abil­i­ties are sup­port­ed and able to thrive at work is cru­cial, it’s also about hav­ing a work­force that reflects soci­ety. “We recog­nise we couldn’t pos­si­bly hope to meet the diverse needs of our clients and their audi­ences with­out hav­ing those diverse per­spec­tives in our own team,” she says.